


Ashes To Ashes, We All Fall Down

by the_diggler



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Castiel's Tan Trenchcoat (Supernatural), Crying Dean Winchester, Dean Winchester Has Nightmares, Episode: s07e02 Hello Cruel World, Extended Metaphors, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Kid Castiel (Supernatural), M/M, Sad Ending, Unresolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:21:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24162751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_diggler/pseuds/the_diggler
Summary: After Castiel swallows the souls of Purgatory and explodes in a lake, Dean dreams about a "child" Cas, and the reminder of the mistakes that led to Castiel's death quickly turns into a nightmare.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	Ashes To Ashes, We All Fall Down

**Author's Note:**

> Written after Castiel's (temporary) death in 7x02, after a whole season of Castiel making bad decisions and Dean calling him a "child." If you have a good memory, there's a lot of visual callbacks and references to iconic Dean/Cas moments from previous seasons as well.

_Chasten thy son while there is hope,  
and let not thy soul spare for his crying. _

_~_

  
Dean is dreaming.  
  
And for once, it’s kind of a good dream. He’s sitting on a park-bench by a playground, there’s an empty bench beside him, and he feels like he might have been here before, but he’s not too sure... The sun is shining just a little too bright, like an overexposed photograph, and it’s all a bit too quiet - no cars, no people, just the slight rustling of a breeze in the trees and the beating of birds’ wings above him. These little hints are what give the dream away, but overall, it’s pretty damn peaceful.  
  
He should’ve known, though, that it wasn’t going to last.  
  
He’s been hearing it for a while now - a high, sort of keening sound - far enough away that he doesn’t notice it at first, but it’s slowly been getting louder. Coming closer. And now he can hear it clearly.  
  
Somewhere in the distance, a child is crying.  
  
Dean tries to pinpoint the source of the sound, but as it grows louder it seems to be coming from all around him, echoes reverberating from every direction. Then suddenly, abruptly, the sound is sucked up, vacuumed to a single point, where a child emerges from the trees.  
  
The child rubs his fists in his eyes he comes closer, trying to staunch the ceaseless stream of tears, so he shouldn’t have even noticed Dean at all. But the kid walks straight up to him, as if he knew Dean was there all along, and when he finally reaches the park-bench he stops... looks up... and there is just something so completely _lost_ in the boy’s enormous blue eyes, yet something so familiar, that Dean feels his chest constrict.  
  
“Have you seen my Father?” the boy asks, tears still rolling down his cheeks.  
  
“Sorry, kid, I don’t think there’s anyone here,” Dean replies, sparing a glance at the empty field.  
  
“Where did he go? I need him,” the child says, his lips trembling.  
  
“I know the feeling, kid,” Dean mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face. The boy sniffles, tilting his head with a frown, and again, the gesture is... too familiar for comfort.  
  
“Where is _your_ Father?” asks the child. Dean sighs, leaning his arm back across the bench as he looks up at the sky. The sun glares down at him through the spaces in between the trees, shifting in varying shades of green as the wind flutters through the leaves.  
  
“He’s gone, kid.”  
  
“But who tells you what to do?” the boy presses. Frowning, Dean looks back down at him.  
  
“I make my own choices, kid. Maybe you should too,” Dean explains sternly.  
  
“Okay,” the child replies, looking down at his feet. He begins to fidget, toeing and kicking at the grass with his shoe.  
  
“I’ve never been away from my family for so long. I’m scared,” he says softly.  
  
“We all are, kid,” Dean reassures gently. “But you’ll learn to deal with it,” he says, his hand going to the kid’s shoulder to soothe him. The child looks up at Dean then, and for the first time during their conversation the boy smiles.  
  
“Okay. I’ll try,” he replies, and there’s something in the kid’s eyes that says he _will_ try, just for Dean. It’s something like adoration. Like he’s just made Dean his new father-figure and he'll do anything to impress him, to make him proud… to make him happy.  
  
And that’s just… _Fuck_.  
  
It’s too much.  
  
Dean squirms uncomfortably. This isn’t what he intended, but hey, children don’t always understand things straight away. It takes time, and experience, and a hell of a lot of guidance to learn how to deal with their newfound emotions and growing will.  
  
Resignedly, Dean stands up off the bench.  
  
“Look, kid, I gotta go,” he says gruffly, patting the boy on the shoulder. “See you ‘round,” he says, turning away. He doesn’t like leaving the kid like this, but he really doesn’t need this right now. He’s tired. And he just wants to be left alone so he doesn’t have to think about… anything.  
  
He’s halfway to his car when the kid shouts after him.  
  
“Wait! How will I know if the choices I make are right or wrong?”  
  
Dean stops in his tracks.  
  
“Good question, kid.”  
  
Dean turns back around. Somewhere above them a crow caws loudly, circling down through the air. As it lands on the grass behind the boy, Dean feels the ground begin to tremble beneath his feet. A rumbling sound, like a low-flying airplane, roils through the air, and as the ground shakes even harder the brightly colored structures of the playground begin to topple, one by one.  
  
“What are you doing, kid?” Dean shouts over the roar, flailing for balance as the grass rolls and crests beneath him.  
  
“I’ll make things right, you’ll see! Then you won’t have to be sad anymore!” the boy yells.  
  
“This isn’t the right way, kid! Trust me!” Dean shouts back. But even as the words come out of his mouth he knows it’s useless. How do you explain morality to a child?  
  
“I’ll have all the power in the world! What I say is right will be right, and what I say is wrong, will be _wrong!_ ” the kid yells. He stamps his foot on the last word, and a sickening crunch pierces the air as several trees come crashing to the ground.  
  
“You don’t understand, kid! You never really did! You were only down here for a really short time!” Dean yells. And as he scrambles for purchase, the ground beneath him turns to mud, rivulets of murky water snaking through the grass towards the child.  
  
“I’m just doing what you taught me!” the kid yells back. “I'm doing this for you, Dean! I'm doing this _because_ of you!”  
  
Dean watches in horror as the black water begins to pool at the kid’s feet, bubbling and oozing outwards at an alarming speed.  
  
“No!” Dean shouts. And he doesn’t know whether it’s because he just wants the kid to stop, or because he knows what’s coming.  
  
“I gave everything to you and this is what you give to me?!” the kid screams at him.  
  
The pool is lake-sized now, waves dark and thrashing around the child, as if clawing for him. And then, impossibly, Dean sees a dock at the far end of the water, and he wants to tell the kid to go there, to run for safety, security… but then the dock implodes, splinters soaring through the air as the structure is sucked under, and Dean sobs, cries out again, “ _No!_ ”  
  
“And I did it - _all_ of it - _FOR YOU!_ ”  
  
“ _Cas!_ ” Dean begins to plead, but the words are ripped from his lungs, whipped through the wind as the grasping edges of the lake begin to suck down everything around it - the grass, the field, the fractured trees and the toppled pieces of the playground, and then finally, the park-benches, one after the other.  
  
“Cas? Cas is _GONE!_ ” the child proclaims, throwing his arms out to the sky. “This is going to be _so much fun!_ ” he cackles, sinking down into the ooze.  
  
“ _NO!_ ” Dean screams, and the cry echoes through sudden silence as his eyes fly open.  
  
For a moment he doesn’t know where he is, or that he’s awake, the blood rushing in his ears too like the howling whirlwind of his nightmare, his breaths too harsh, too hard to catch.  
  
But eventually, the pulsing in his ears ebbs away, and he feels the familiar concrete of Bobby’s garage grounding him, the cool steel of the Impala at his back.  
  
“Cas you freakin’ child, you should’ve listened to me,” he whispers into the dark, reaching up to scrub away the… sleep… from his eyes.  
  
There is no answer.  
  
Eventually Dean hauls himself up off the ground, and carefully places the trenchcoat back into the trunk, resolutely ignoring the fresh dampness on its collar as he slams the trunk closed.  
  
  
_~_

  
_He that spareth his rod hateth his son:  
but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. _

  
  
~ _fin Feb '12  
_


End file.
